US decision would hit families' pocketbooks in El Salvador

Every two weeks, Flor Tovar and her two sons Christian, right, and Omar Elias, left, pose for a photo at their home in Ciudad Real, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Tovar receives a lifeline every two weeks in the form of wired cash from her husband living in the The Associated Every two weeks, Flor Tovar receives a lifeline in the form of cash wired from her husband living in the United States.

The money pays the $50 rent for her modest two-bedroom home in a low-income housing development about an hour northwest of El Salvador's capital. It also covers school transportation for their two sons, the electricity, water and cable television.
Now a decision made in Washington to end temporary protected status for her husband and nearly 200,000 other Salvadorans in the U.S. has the 33-year-old Tovar and her sons wondering what a future without that income would look like. Salvadorans with the status have been given until Sept. 9, 2019, to leave the United States or face deportation.

"It is very worrisome. These people don't have the resources to come back, and the crime is terrible here," Tovar said Tuesday.

The change would affect only a fraction of the estimated 2 million Salvadorans living the United States. But the effects could be devastating for families like Tovar's who depend on the money sent home by relatives.